


pastel blue for unfortunate blue

by rischaa



Series: five ways to fall in love | jarchie ship week 2017 [5]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Eating Disorders, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hanahaki Disease, Heavy Angst, I'm Actually Not Sure If He's Ace Here, I'm Sorry, Implied Relationships, Jughead Jones Needs a Hug, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Not Taking Care of Themselves, Unrequited Love, it's implied - Freeform, tea: jarchie day 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-23 07:46:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11398173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rischaa/pseuds/rischaa
Summary: He never wants to forget Jughead Jones, the man he spits blue scabious flower petals with the occasional yellow tulips for.Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.-day 7 for jarchie ship week 2017 | prompt: free day- hanahaki disease// the jarchie fic where archie suffersa lotand tons of unrequited love that kills (literally)





	1. unfortunately and hopelessly in love

**Author's Note:**

> this is really long compared to my other fics for this week, but it's the last day, so here's a treat. **for the last day, i've decided i'm not going to focus much on juggie (even though there's an entire chapter for him), but on archie. so here. there are triggers for suicide and mild eating disorder. please take caution.**  
>  -  
> hope you enjoy, darlings~

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> he loved him so much he ended up hurting himself. // absence makes the heart grow fonder - william shakespeare, merchant of venice

He should’ve known that of all the things in the world, _he_ was going to be the death of him. He should’ve taken notice when everything was falling perfectly into place like puzzle pieces in their designated place. All these hints and butterflies looming in his stomach. His body had become home to nature and everything screamed danger and foreshadowed pain.

 

They fell out his bleeding lips like the leaves during autumn and he felt like he was part of it too. The dead leaves, the loss of attachment from what he was. That’s what he was; just another falling leaf off of a dying tree that represented his heart’s problem. It wasn’t supposed to happen but it did. His own body had become home, almost like a garden, with his heart as beating soil wrapped with roots. Countless adult roots and still growing ones.

 

And apparently so, they’ve been there ever since he was five. _Five years old-_ that’s around twenty-one years of his life and he’s only realized recently. This poignant pain, it resonates like the pumped oxygen in his blood and it scratches his lips, his lungs, his veins and his tears. They’re bright plants made to grow in his body and threaten his life and remind him he’s not loved.

 

It’s okay like this. If he takes _it_ , he’ll forget. He’ll forget his cerulean Pacific Ocean like eyes and his black hair that looked like the waves at night crested under that hat of his. He’ll forget his laugh and his smile that battled the Cheshire’s. He’ll forget his chapped lips that were painted pink that she kisses every moment she gets. He’ll forget his love for all of it and most of all _him._

 

He never wants to forget Jughead Jones, the man he spits blue scabious flower petals with the occasional yellow tulips for.

 

_Not today, not tomorrow, not ever._

* * *

 It was the realization that made them bloom faster than flower would normally under the morning dew. Archie had realized it when he watched them together as if nothing would ever separate the both of them. It was when he caught a glimpse of the both of them kiss and he almost tore it away and looked back. He _looked back_ and it felt like something started burning in his chest.

 

Archie bit his lips and approached Veronica who was watching them from a distance as well. She had her arms folded and her eyes set on the both of them, a forlorn smile smeared her face carelessly. Right when he was about to say something, she turned her raven head and looked at him dead straight at the eye. It makes him jolt a step back and he had to steady himself, licking his lips as he gazes at her awkwardly with shifting eyes.

 

“Don’t they look so cute, even years later?”

 

Her words send a sudden electric current down his heart and throat. Archie swallowed and something felt stuffy in his chest that it made him thirst for water. The following words he spouted out of his soon to bleed lips made it even harder to breathe.

 

“Yeah, they do. They really are, I, uh, suppose, Ron.”

 

They watch a little longer, their eyes dead set on everything they encompassed. The feeling’s back again and it’s even worse now that he can hear their voices coming closer in an earshot. A fusion of Jughead and Betty’s voices vigor and cutesy. It made him almost sick to his stomach. There was something piling up in his chest and it was suffocating. It hurt as if there was a living fire in his chest just burning and sending sparks through his veins; like hellfire coursing through his body.

 

“Archie? Shit.”

 

Archie feels Veronica grab his arm suddenly and they walk in a rush to the nearest hidden place by the beach (which was real limited at this time of the day); she had rushed the both of them by their road trip car. It was a harder to breathe, he felt something start to pile up his throat as of something were to poke out like a stake.

 

Then he coughs; and it feels weird in his mouth and smells something ‘round the spectrum of floral scents and iron, _iron?_   Iron as in blood? It tastes like blood, somehow but there was something else slipping out his lips. When he regains his sense of normality and vision, he sees flowers on the ground with blood. So much blood splotches and so many petals. Blue and some yellow.

 

He hears Veronica squeak and he quickly turns his eyes to her. She has her palm covering her shocked face and her eyes twinkled with nothing but concern. He didn’t know what to do; there was bloody petals and they were _his._ He had heard of something like it too, something that would be put under the spectrum of ‘the diseased’.

 

“You have it. You have it. You ha- oh gosh, when did you realize?”

 

“Have what?” It burns in his chest as he speaks and he clenches his hand into a fist nervously in wait for her answer hoping time would go faster.

 

“Hanahaki. You have what we call the ‘Flower Disease’ or Hanahaki Disease. It’s- who is it?”

 

“What are you even talking about, Veronica?”

 

It was just the atmosphere of confusion now circling around his head rather than Veronica. She seemed to know something and she was terribly concerned about it too. It was just some flowers and blood. Something stupid, but the word ‘disease’ that tumbled like a whisper out of her mouth sounded so dangerous like this weird feeling for Jughead who already ha-

 

Archie groans loudly and he feels a punch through his chest. It’s burning and oh god, this was hell. This hurt like hell. Why? Why did it feel like he was suffering in hell to the point he felt like he was going to die anytime soon? _Why?!_

“Archie, breathe. Think about something else, uh, uh- like puppies! Please, think of anything else but your last thought,” she brings her hand to his face and his shoulders; her eyes searching for any sign of comfort.

 

He thinks of how stupid the world is for making him feel terrified for his life. It’s throbbing.

 

“It hurts so damn much, Ron. Why?”

 

“You love someone, don’t you? And I’m pretty sure they won’t love you back. That’s what contracts it or maybe, hopefully not in your case, it’s always been there,” Archie hears her whisper under her breath, _‘God, I hope not.’_

“Always been there, Ron?”

 

“Maybe you’ve always subconsciously loved them and your heart has only realized that they’ll never love you back the same way you do.”

 

“I don’t. Why? I don’t even. I wouldn’t have just realized. I would’ve notice and Ju- “ his words come to a halt as he realizes who it is.  His breath gets hard and heavy and he can feel himself slipping away. It’s getting blurry now, his vision and all the voices in his head. He knows now and everything just feels like overbearing pain poking through his heart. His oversensitive heart in need of requited love which will never…

 

“It’s Jug, Ronnie. It’s- “he breathes heavily before his eyes are drooping slowly and slipping down the car’s burning side, “- him.”

 

_“It’s him.”_

* * *

His state reminded him of a dying tree in the midst of a joy-filled fall verging into deadly winter. His lips scarred with scarred and happed with blood scabs he tried to tear away leaving more blood. Suffocating to breathe through the airway he once called his mouth (now become so bitterly medical), as he gets himself checked before he gets the verdict.

 

The metal feels cold even above his layers of clothes. Maybe it’s the ironic situation that replicated how stupid everything felt so cold and empty for now. He feels like the bones left to decompose for the past seasons. The only thing left to do was for the blue scabious petals to kill him along with yellow tulips to accompany like partners in crime.

 

“It’s clogged, yes- “his doctor, Veronica’s really, clears his throat before continuing “- and from the x-ray we took earlier, I can say it’s always been there. Also, the cause of nonstop blooming was because it was in full bloom. It’s normal once they realize, really.”

 

Archie closes his eyes, breathing unsteadily, and his hand rests on his chest.

 

“What do I- What can I do?”

 

“I’d really recommend this for your comfort and for you to live but it’s your choice,” Archie only notices the name tag on his doctor’s coat, _Tyler D.;_ he wonders what’s his last name then noticing his grave expression expressed towards him.

 

“What’s it anyway?”

 

“A surgery, Mr. An- ah, sorry, Archie, it’s surgery to remove the flowers and roots. But you can leave it as it is and suffer. I can give you painkillers for that but you’ll have to take caution. Ah, I forgot to mention, the surgery does have consequences.”

 

“If I take it, what happens?” he hears Veronica squeak behind him.

 

Tyler, Archie he decides to call him instead of putting the ‘Dr.’ in front of it. He’s not that bothered to say it anyway. Then he hears him sigh as he bites his bottom lip, “You forget everything about them,” Tyler breathes heavily as if recalling something terrible, “Feelings and everything.”

 

No. _No. **No.**_

Silence drowns all the existing life he’s acknowledges around him for the past moments. The sudden urge to cough crashes like sea waves upon him. It’s shattering, this realization of how cruel this world truly is. It’s a cruel, dark void of suffering and pain. It paints a screaming scarlet red around him. Just _why?_

Why would he want to forget Jughead? Half of his life revolved around him and it would dis- oh god, disappear? Then everyone would have to pity them, Archie imagines, resulting with no one willing to fill the blanks. All the details, they’d never really know. All the crook and crannies, secrets, and lies about Jug. All the things he’s thought that Jug was brilliant and bad at- then it comes to him like another wave.

 

That’s what they mean by ‘it’s always been there’. The flowers have been growing at a slow pace; he’s always been infatuated with him and it just doesn’t make sense. But now it does, because he realizes how much time he’s actually spent with Jug when they were kids. How broken they were in high school with the killing and how he yearned for everything to be okay.

 

It had hurt so much when he saw them. He’ll never ever have that- not with him at the least.

 

“I’d like the painkillers, Tyler.”

-

When milkvetch and pink dog rose petals litter their apartment, he runs to Veronica’s side only to find her coughing out more into the toilet bowl. They can’t help it if they’re like this, living with a disease to represent the beautiful sick thing they have. It’s such a beautiful yet sick thing, this disease they have. Flowers to represent the unrequited outcast of the unloved part of society.

 

“Here, water, Ron.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

It’s always like this in their apartment; they take care of each other with this wretched thing taking over their lives. But mostly, he was the main priority, considering how often bloody petals were scattering their living space. It was almost tiring, but he’d rather have this than having to see Jughead and ponder over the empty blank space in a sentence of what or who he was.

 

Veronica reminds him every day or after every lapse or cough, he’ll be fine. But knowing it will never happen, makes it worse.

 

“You know that I’ll never make it, right, Ronnie?” he says all of a sudden.

 

Veronica looks at him incredulously, “How the hell could you say that?”

 

“Ron, I have the worst-case scenario out of the both of us. It’s almost always blooming these stupid fucking- I’m the broken and unfortunate one here. It’s haunting all these flowers. They mock me so much. So, so much, Ron,” Archie croaks.

 

“You can’t die. That’s selfish of you.”

 

“Selfish, Veronica? How? You’re not the one who’s lungs are completely in full bloom every now and then! If this continues, I-I’m going to die and you know it!” he points the finger to himself harshly, “I can’t help if I’m the one with more memories induced nightmares only to remind me that I’m the one he’ll never love! _Every single fucking night, Ron!”_

 

"That's! I- you ca- “

 

He’s a problem, that’s all. He’s known that, no, he’s been thinking of how everything was falling apart. And he’s a part of that as well, falling apart like his whole life and everything he cared about like dominoes. He had to be conscious of everything, every person he’s pass by, every time he’d see someone like Jughead. The fact that anytime petals would fall out of his lips, it drives him crazy. Society would make him more of an outcast already. It haunts him every night to the point he wants the flowers to choke him to death right then and there.

 

Sometimes, it does happen. It’s three in the morning and all he can feel is the petals rushing like waterfalls out his mouth. They leave blood on his lips and it’s always messy every time. He always tries to stuff them back in and it _always,_ _always_ makes it worse. Then the voices start running in his head. Anything to stop the throbbing pain, he’ll express more pain. Pain, pain, these flowers were pain.

 

Bleeding pain, the beauty of love wreaking havoc over his head and heart. It’s ruling over him and his memories make it worse. He should’ve gone with Tyler’s recommendation, damn it. But no, no, his heart had not managed to live out of the ship wreck of realization of losing Jughead. It was like hiding an iceberg on that very day of nineteen-oh-twelve when the _Titanic_ had sunk. Sinking to the bottom with all its very discreet and very much hidden secrets. That’s what he is. Just a ship drowning with this iceberg of a disease.

 

“I’m going to die first out of the two of us,” he repeats.

 

“You’ve got to tell him,” she finally says almost with regret laced around it.

 

“Will you ever tell her?”

 

They both know their answers and even saying it would be like jumping head on to deadly highway with rushing cars. Risks at every corner taking over their minds, their hearts with fear to top it all.  They know the probable answer if they even dare to ask.

 

It’s too dangerous.

 

So, _‘no.’_

* * *

“Have you been eating lately, Arch?”

 

He replies with an answer that Jughead would be satisfied with. A _‘yes’_ not _‘no, I really haven’t and I’m dying because of you.’_   It’s quite ironic at the fact that he’s even bothered to accompany him to the florist for his anniversary with Betty. Just going to grab a bouquet for her and everything’s going to be fine, _right?_

 

Yeah, that’s not working out at all.

 

He can feel the petals scratch his throat once and again as they grow closer and closer to their destination. Really, he’s just trying to talk a little less but Jughead won’t stop talking about him and how he looks so different from when he last saw him. It’s sickening to hear the words he spills out of his beautiful mouth when those are the things he tells himself every now and then.

 

“Well, we can grab something before going back to my apartment and dropping these, yeah?”

 

“We’re here, Jug.”

 

It’s like meeting his worst nightmare (second, that is) right in front of him. It reeks of floral scents as they enter and it’s such a sick thing to see them cut, prepared, and then put in bouquets. A sick thing to see them right in front of his face and they’re surrounding him. Every time he turns his head, he sees the damned petals ruining _their_ lives.

 

He sneers at the yellow tulips he stands by them.

 

“Couldn’t you look any sicker of this place, young man?”

 

Archie turns his head from the origin of the voice, right behind the counter. It’s an old man, probably in his eighties or seventies, his hair cut neat and tucked. He still has this stubble on him and recently shaven, Archie notices.

 

“You look like you’re one of them, the ones with the disease,” the man says more calmly.

 

He looks around and sees Jughead far away from the vicinity of their fragile glass-like conversation. Jughead didn’t need to know about this problem of his; it’d cause him trouble and he didn’t want that. He’d not going to make mistakes of stupidity like he did back in high school.

 

 _Not again._ His hand trembles as he takes one last lingering look before looking back at the florist man.

 

“Maybe I am,” he whispers, his fingers brushing against the yellow tulips.

 

“You could always tell them, boy.”

 

“Why would I do that? I already know there’s a low chance of it being returned,” he hisses at the old man, “I’m dying soon anyway.”

 

“Hey, calm. Just a suggestion, but maybe tell him at least.”

 

“I’m going to die because of these stupid flowers right here,” he flicks his fingers at the yellow tulips and they only fall back to their first position. The smell is so familiar and overwhelming that it almost makes him want to spit out blood coated petal renditions of these.

 

“Unfortunate, huh? Such irony for such a young man.”

 

He laughs bitterly and as Jughead hands a bunch of flowers for the man to wrap up neatly into a bouquet. He coughs as he sees the smile Jughead has written all over his face as he pays for the bouquet. It spikes this sudden trigger in him, a shock, again.

 

Archie runs out of the shop when he feels them coming. He can’t breathe.

Blue, yellow, and crimson red fill the bowl.

 

He’s _okay._ (not.)

* * *

Clogged airways were covered with crawling vines of budding blue scabious flowers with yellow tulips as well. He’s just finished his appointment with Tyler and nothing was improving considering he had just went out with Jughead for lunch for old time’s sake recently.

 

Everything was getting worse for the both of them. They barely have time to clean the littering petals all over their dimly lit living space. There were milkvetch petals on the couch and dog rose near the kitchen counter. Yellow tulips with blood were smearing the wooden floors by his room and blue scabious trailing its way to the bathroom. Their living space had become a whole mess, just like the both of them.

 

There’s this sickly smell in the air of medicine and take-out with that certain floral scent.

 

He wants to die. It’s become so repetitive now, the notion in his head. It’s engraved like last words unto a stone grave in the midst of all the dead. He realizes it’s been the only feeling he’s had for the past eight months. It’s a wonder, apparently to Tyler, how he’s not dead yet. Archie should be possibly dead around two months ago; was the possible month he could die if his situation of a full blooming set of lungs and heart continued.

 

Just thank his great decisions of staying at home and urging himself not to go out even if Jughead or Betty urged him to do so. It felt a little bit safer in here.

 

Or so that’s what Veronica and he thought.

 

“Anybody actually home?”

 

It’s a sudden voice ringing through their slightly empty apartment. Veronica and Archie had been cleaning their floors of flower petals when they heard their voices ring through their apartment. They both freeze and look at each other with fear coursing like electric current through their veins of floral fused blood.

 

“Quick, shove them all in the bag!” Archie whispers loudly.

 

“I know! I’ll do my room and the bathroom! You do the living room! At least the kitchen’s done!”

 

“Archie? Veronica?” Betty’s voice comes through giving them only more adrenaline to run through their space, almost knocking into each other when they shove it under Archie’s bed. They would have thrown it in the trash bins outside but they didn’t have time and Betty and Jughead would find out.

 

That was the only thing they tried to avoid. Anything but them finding out.

 

They rush to the door and all Archie feels is the numbing pain about to crash upon him when he sees them. He can already imagine it; the both of them holding hands and they’d look so damn in lo- _Fuck!_ He shouldn’t be thinking these things; they’d result him in coughing out bloody petals. To think he had avoided the both of them only for them to come haunt his life like lingering ghosts attached to a dying manor.

 

“Hey guys! Ron! Arch, you, uh, lo- “

 

“Look different, I know,” it was an automated reply wired into his brain for months now.

 

“So, what did you guys come and stop by for?” Veronica quickly urges them to come in their apartment making them sit on the blue suede couch. He immediately notices how their hands are linked together then parting as Betty gives something to Veronica. Now, it’s just him and Jughead sitting on opposite side of the living room.

 

He’s looking at Betty with _those_ eyes. Eyes that suggested that Betty was his entire world. Like she put up the stars in the universe and she created everything around him. Like she was the only thing that mattered and that he’d die for her. Take a bullet, one would say specifically.

 

Archie would never have that. Never have those cerulean sea colored eyes looking at him that way. He would never have him all to himself; he’ll always have to be suffering in pain with thrashing petals fighting like soldiers against his dying life force. They played with swords as he watched even longingly at him, Jughead not even noticing so.

 

It’s better like this anyway, suffering with these petals and the both of them not noticing. Not noticing that he was so close to death, but then again, he looked like he wasn’t even eating properly. He had become thin, due to all the blood loss and inability to breathe well. He tried to eat properly, really, it was just impossible to do things properly.

 

It made him feel unwanted, these flowers. As if looking at him would bring pain and their only job was to bring unto stacks upon stacks of the same pain on his heart only to leave visible scars. And the only end goal of their mission was to eradicate the unloved.

 

Looking at him, he wants his last vision before death to be his eyes. It would be a beautiful death, indeed.

 

“Hey Arch, what’s up? You look zoned out.”

 

He snaps out of his thoughts and looks back at Jughead, “Nothin, Jug.”

 

It’s such an empty conversation that Jughead decides to drag on, “There must be something, right?” he pauses and looks at Veronica, “Ron? Are you guys like together or something?”

 

The thought makes him laugh quite loudly enough for Veronica and Betty to stop and look at him with concern. Jughead looks appalled at his reaction and very much at that. It hurts to laugh; so much that he stops to catch his limited breath. Being with Veronica? _Ha!_ That was the funniest thing he’s ever heard. Just because they lived together didn’t mean that they were, in fact, together.

 

It was for the convenience of the blooming disease in their chests.

 

“No, Jug. I’m not with Ron. We just live together for- “Archie clutches his chest; it’s so itchy and painful, flowers rushing upwards, “ _conve- “_

 

Everything goes to a living nightmare full of hellfire burning his throat and mind. He rushes to Veronica, and almost staggers. It’s forcefully trying to come out. He hears Veronica drop whatever she’s holding and they lock themselves in the bathroom. Archie sees blurry lines, blurry colors, blobs of things, they were all blobs. Something warm streams its way down his cheeks as he coughs.

 

Veronica doesn’t talk, only rubbing his back and holding him so he won’t fall face forward. Blinking away the warm droplets, he sees the scabious flowers filling the toilet bowl. His lips feel chapped as very hot blood slips its way out of those lips along with accompanied yellow tulips. _Hurts. Everything hurts._

 

He thinks of something else, their past. Running in the fields and investigating the random flora and fauna by the evergreen forests and damp soil scented with petrichor. Laying on their backs and talking about Greek and Roman myths under the stars Archie loved talking about. Eating burgers under their pillow fortress. Playing video games until dawn and watching movies even though the other didn’t like it. Drinking their first beers together and falling asleep while doing so in the drive-in.

 

Archie grips tighter on the rim of the bowl and coughs out a bit more. He tries to catch his breath, running his fingers through his hair while at it. He can feel so much pain.

 

“Ron, the medici- no, fuck, the painkillers. I need them,” he whispers breathless.

 

“No! You haven’t even eaten lunch yet! Of all thi- “

 

“ _Ron!_ Please, the painkillers. It just hurts,” he screams, his voice then lowering as he feels the shock of pain. They’re growing again, _shit._

 

“God, I’m going to hate myself for doing this,” she stands up and he tries to sit up straight as she grabs them from the medicine cabinet behind the mirror.

 

“Veronica! Archie! What’s going on in there?”

 

He bites his lips and he can imagine him looking helpless on the other side because of _him_. This was his fault; all of this. Falling for someone like him and hurting him making him oblivious to this condition. He didn’t need to know; if he did, he’d see that solemn, morose face of his that would haunt his mind for ages slowly killing his lungs with the beauty of blues and yellows.

 

“Nothing! Just- “

 

“Don’t lie, Veronica! Something bad is happening to my friend an- “

 

 _Friend._ It rang as clear as his feelings for him. As clear as his beautiful sea like eyes. As clear as the motives of the flowers growing in his chest. As clear as the pain coursing through his body caused by that one word. That’s all he was. A _friend._ Not anything more than that.

 

It sent a sudden jolt to his heart like a root just pierced by an artery. Archie gasps, his eyes widening and reaching for Veronica. The table container drops out of her hands and kneels close to him. His breaths are shallow and short and he feels everything becoming nothing but a blur. A beautiful colorful blur. He’s dropped and everything’s a pretty swirl of white. He can hear the door open and Veronica scream-

 

“Haven’t you ever noticed the scent in out apartment? I thought you were smart, you know? Even you, Betty! You oblivious fucking pair!”

 

“Ron, don’t,” Archie manages to croak out as he tries to stand up from his position.

 

“Arch…”

 

“Painkillers, Ron. I ne- I need water.”

 

“You haven’t eaten!”

 

“I _fucking know, damn it!_ Just get me the water! I don’t care anymore!” his hands grip the rim of the bathroom sink tighter, feeling the edges being pushed harshly against his palm, “I didn’t eat, so what? Even Tyler knows I shouldn’t be right here, right now. It’s only going to get worse. I know that Ron and I can’t stop it,” he talks softly, the words ripping his every breath and the petals running through his throat. It’s almost like a noose; refraining him from speaking any longer.

 

“Damn it, Archie!” he’s handed a glass of water and he quickly downs two tablets along with it.

 

Archie then feels them shrink even a few inches down and feel the pain stop even for the next few minutes. His vision comes back and he turns his head to looks at the pity-stricken faces of Jughead and Betty. Their hands are held together and they’re squeezing each other’s palms. They’re, oh so close, to crying and he feels the irony rise from this situation. They don’t have the right to look so sad over him. They weren’t the ones suffering from the disease. They weren’t the ones spitting out flowers when they saw them just like _that._ So perfectly close and _in love_.

 

He staggers a little bit as he flushes the petals down the drain making a dull technicolor green. He walks past them and he hears Jughead whisper very softly-

 

“Hanahaki. Y-you, of all people, ha- I should’ve known out of the four of us.”

 

“Don’t make me the odd one out here. There’s two living in this house suffering, Jug,” he scoffs coated with venom. It comes back crawling to him the form of petals growing so quickly and it burns like living fire. _Fuck!_

 

“I just didn’t expect it, Arch. I never thoug- “

 

“You never thought _what?_ That I’d fall in love? I’ve been in love for a real long time. It’s actually been there the entire time according to Tyler. I have it worse than Ron will ever experience, _ha!_ It feels great, falling in love and it being requited, huh, Jug?”

 

They’re walking back to the living room where it’s very dimly lit now. The lights are off except for this one orange lamp at on the right side of couch. The atmosphere seems heavy and Archie can’t help but feel the same as the aura being carried around everyone. Uneasy, anxious, scared, and the heavy feeling of knowing he’s going to die.

 

 _Die…_ It could happen so soon. He wants to see them.

 

“Archie, you know that Jug didn’t mean to say it that way, you know how he is,” Betty argues noticing the tension between the both of them, “We just didn’t expect for the both of you to have the disease of all the people we know.”

 

“Oh, is that what we are now, huh, Betty? I wouldn’t expect any less, really. We’re the _“diseased”_ to you normally loved people of the people,” Veronica walks to Betty raising her index and middle fingers to create air quotation marks angrily, “Sure we’re dying, but god, Betty don't be insensi- “

 

She coughs a white petal out followed by a pink one too. She lets them fall and Archie notices that her voice has cracked and Veronica’s tearing up. They look so pitiful; hair disheveled, sick looking, dead, and unhealthy. How hypocritical of them to say such things. He felt so dearly offended. He doesn’t rush to help her. Veronica stands there and mumbles something that sounds like a sincere apology.

 

Silence comes like stormy waves on a hurricane evening. They stand there, their heads drooping down and refusing to talk. He decides to break the silence, repeating the only thing he’s known since the start.

 

“It’s hopeless, you know. Fighting over what we are, Ron. That’s just what we are. I’m so deep in anyway. I could die ri- “

 

“Who are they?” Betty cuts in, bringing the question up.

 

“People who should never know, Bets,” Ron replies with hesitation.

 

“We could at least make the fall in love with- “

 

_“We said it’s hopeless! They’re **in love with other fucking people!** ”_

“But, we ca- “

 

“Betty, don’t. We should just leave. I’m pretty sure we should just give them space,” Jughead’s voice sounded different, “Trust me, I want to help, but- “ it sounded so distorted and _not_ right. It sounded so different from his proper voice. It was like it was being auto-tuned. He can hear Betty try to argue and her voice- it was…

 

It continued for eternity’s end, the sense of it rippling loudly, a voice to be remembered as a memory. A voice that reminded him of his own curse, his anaxiphilia for him _, “Arch-“_

 

He can’t feel anything, just the sudden falling and somebody screaming- screaming his name perhaps? He can’t feel the blood rush with adrenaline anymore, he can feel the final flowers give their final bloom and fill up his lungs and chest. He can’t breathe, just the feeling of losing of feeling anything and he’s grateful for that. He can feel the voices become the ringing solitude. He wishes he can see them- his…

 

Those beautiful eyes even for an ephemeral moment, he wished. He wishes for so many things as these minutes started ticking by. The feeling of sudden solitude; it was like the sound of empty stations left while the radio was on, the quiet static sound and the voices warping within it. There was a ring od desperation from someone but it’s slipping ever so slowly.

 

To think it would happen in such a way, his last words to hear said with such a glum sense to it, like he was an _outcast_ (or maybe not, he never understood Jughead sometimes.) It’s alright, now; at least, it was _his voice._ His beautiful voice that sounded like soothing waves. He could drown in it forever.

 

He whispers, a last fluttering remnant of his petals, the second pronoun, delicately as possible. The brush of the blue petals escape his lips. He’s disintegrating, slowly. That’s what it feels like, floating onto nothingness, losing of feeling, noiseless space; perfect isolation.

 

He feels the oxygen flow freely as he hears the soft voice of his. He knows.

 

It’s alright now. They cease to be; at least he knows he’s existed.

 

_It’s over now. Finally._

 

_(and, he never even got to see his blue eyes last.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> meaning of the flowers:  
>  **veronica** – milk vetch flowers with dog rose// your presence softens my pain and pleasure and pain  
>  **archie** \- scabious flowers with the occasional tulip flowers // unfortunate love and hopeless love  
> 


	2. un ange qui a chuchoté | an angel who whispered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> his eyes grew wide and wished he could have loved him. but times were cruel back then. he ends with a quick eulogy that makes his heart bleed. // loving you was a form of self destruction. - d.j.

he looks at him fall.

 

fall like the leaves of autumn so gracefully. his grip on betty’s hand loosening and he moves toward him. he dives, almost, or that’s what it seemed like. it was slow- the way he fell, his body arching backwards towards the floor; his grip on the wall slipping.

 

funny to think, they both were slipping away.

 

_dontleavepleasedontleavemeidontwanttobe-_

 

on two different takes, that is; the other heartbreakingly so.

 

he had never really thought about it, to be honest. what it’d feel like to lose _him_ of all things. he had always thought he’d _always_ be there. almost like a guardian angel and that’s what archie had said to him once. that he’d protect him from anything. anything from pain.

 

he believed him. he trusted him, but sometimes, he broke it.

 

but arch still knew him best.

 

he wondered why he ran. why he felt like his life was slipping away. why he felt this sudden electric current run like electrons clashing against each other like crazy. he couldn’t explain quite exquisitely like he did with his words written on his manuscripts.

 

it was plain and simple and happening _now._ _now_ of all places, and of all days.

 

he said he wouldn’t hurt him.

 

but he went back on that; he fucking lied. he said he’d be his angel and that he was, _in a way._

 

and yet here he was, his wings disintegrating, his life falling apart.

 

_-justpleasedontleaveme._

 

he watched him. he watched him disintegrate so beautifully yet it was such a sickening sight to watch. he watched him smile like it was okay. he watched the petals fall like it was nothing. he watched him whisper his last words.

 

or so, his last _word._

 

it was one word tangling on a breaking thread holding his emotions together. holding the fact that he was remaining calm and he refused to let veronica or betty touch him. he wouldn’t let them. it was almost as if he was walking through the broken bridge resting above the ravine of the endless oblivion and he was scared.

 

ropes reigning over him with fear and suffocation. he was more scared and his voice was a mere whisper.

 

a whisper that brought the waterfalls coming silently. a whisper that cut like knives across his lungs and heart. is this what he felt? the panging pain when he coughed?

 

it was like that, he supposes. he doesn’t understand why he couldn’t just get himself all better and forget all about his existence. it would hurt, yes, for him and his very fragile, sensitive heart; he’d want to see archie and say he knew him but he wouldn’t. so why?

 

why did he have to go ahead and be like this? why did he have to whisper such words and suffer for him? guilt creeped up his heart so cold; it would’ve been warm if only…

 

_whymustyouleaveme?_

 

it was warm at first then it had turned cold.

 

at this moment in time, he refused to let go. not now. he held him.

 

he held him closer than he had ever before in his life. their chests were touching, and yet one would think two would beat, one only beat. and it beat with overwhelming tides of emotions like a sea in the middle of a hurricane.

 

he was somewhere in between one. he couldn’t find no eye of the hurricane.

 

maybe it doesn’t exist.

 

but he had caused this all.

 

he had caused his pain. his weak body. his forlorn smile. his forced lies that he had doubts over. he knew him best. he knew when arch lied. but then, arch had learned to be careful.

 

and just minutes ago- he had seen him choke on these dastardly petals; hues of blue and yellow had filled his sight. he had seen him alive, _no,_ he was past beyond that point. he was a broken walking frame. and he should’ve done something.

 

like _love_ him.

 

and maybe he did. maybe he loved him more than betty. maybe he did, _just maybe._

 

if betty had died now, what would he have felt? would he have felt this gut wrenching pain? would he have wanted to kiss her desperately for her to live just he wanted to do so? would he have held her the same way he was holding archie right now?

 

maybe so. but _not this way._

 

his chest hurt as he screamed- refusing for the people to take him away.

 

they took him anyway.

 

as he waited for the declaration, he wished he could’ve stopped this all.

 

he wished he could’ve noticed and not brushed it away like it was nothing because then society would’ve scorned upon him.

 

it only he could turn the time back to when they were sixteen. or when they were twenty. times when he brushed it away like it was nothing. he wished he could be sixteen right now and say he loved him just like betty did once to archie. he wished he could be twenty and be with archie but he started living with veronica. (cue the thoughts of unrequited love or so he thought.)

 

but he was a coward.

 

so, for now, he could proudly say it right there and then.

 

he could say it right now at the black and white ceremony covered with beautiful tulips and scabious tints; his fingers digging into his bleeding palms.

 

blood in exchange for pain. quite pretty if he thought so himself.

 

he could say with a controlled shaking voice in front of the society that would’ve scorned upon him if he came to accept him feelings.

 

he’d start with-

 

_‘he wished to see blue, that i know.’_

continuing, _‘he saw beauty in that color. he saw a person with beauty.’_

_‘that person…’_  no, they didn’t deserve to know. it’d be their own little secret like when they were kids.

 

the people would look at him with interest but he’d trail off-

 

_‘his heart bloomed blue anaxiphilia. you see, the mind is dangerous and so was his and it was the prettiest and the dumbest i’ve ever seen. he was just that football kid with freckles who vowed he’d be my guardian angel protecting me from pain. but you know-’_

he smiles painfully as he continues-

 

_‘-even if angels lied… i loved them anyway.’_

hushed blue skies smile.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked that and leave a kudo or comment if you did~  
> -  
> hmu on mah [ tumblr](https://chrischaa.tumblr.com/)  
> if ya wanna scream about jarchie or riverdale or or anything basically


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